Page 42 of Everything's Coming Up Rosie

“I feel like there’s a story there,” I say, hopefully lightly, fighting off the desire to prod him with questions so I can learn everything there is to know about him. I put my feet up on the dash of the cart.

He watches the path in front of us. “Ah. Yes. But you’ll never know it because—” He lifts his hands as if I’m supposed to finish the sentence.

“Because you’re hard to know.”

He gives me a pointed nod, as if to say,“Bingo!”

If only that didn’t make me want to know him more. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll be forced to fill in the blanks, and I have a very active imagination.”

His amused expression shifts.

“So you use humor to cover up your real feelings,” I say, sizing him up. “Interesting.”

A quick glance at me. “I’m a guy. It’s what we do.”

I chuckle.

He turns onto a wide sidewalk. “I didn’t realize you’re a therapist too.”

“Theatre is basically psychology,” I tell him, watching the houses go by as we drive. “It’s studying people. What they do and why they do it. You have to get inside a character’s head in order to, you know, figure her out. What makes her tick? Why does she do the things she does? I could probably be a therapist with no additional training.”

“Might be abitmore schooling to go through, but...”

I shrug playfully. “To-may-toe, to-mah-toe.”

There’s a brief moment of silence, and then he asks, “Do you ever try and psychoanalyze yourself?”

“Ha! No way,” I answer. “I’mwaytoo complicated to start asking myself questions. I’m like a balled-up wad of Christmas lights.”

He half laughs. “Where to begin... maybe with why the panic applying for jobs? Why take one in Wisconsin without even checking it out first?” He glances at me.

I narrow my eyes comically. “I amalsohard to know.”

“If you don’t tell me, I’ll be forced to fill in the blanks,” he jokes.

I feel something inside me settle.

There’s a lull, and then I say, “I wouldn’t have thought you were hard to know. You seem... friendly.”

He waves to someone in the distance, as if to prove my point. “Being friendly isn’t the same as letting people know you.”

Don’t I know it.

“It’s obvious someone has said this to you before.” I study his profile. “Ex-girlfriend? The reason you don’t date?”

He pulls the cart to a stop, hops out, and with a flourish, says, “Aaand... welcome back to your summer home!”

I eye him as I get up and cross around to the front of the golf car. “You deflected.”

“I know, right? Dodged it like a champ.”

“Well played.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Thank you.”

There’s a beat. A moment of silence. And then I offer, “I don’t like to talk about myself either.”

“Perfect,” he says. “Then the two of us will become great friends who know nothing about each other.”

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